“In travelling by this, you have no further trouble than to take your place in the office for as far as you wish to go; for the proprietor of the coach has, at each stage, which are from ten to fifteen English miles at most from each other, relays of horses, which, unless an unusual amount of travelling causes an exception, stand ready harnessed to be put to the coach. Four horses, drawing a coach with six persons inside, four on the roof, a sort of conductor beside the coachman, and overladen with luggage, have to get over seven English miles in the hour; and, as the coach goes on without ever stopping, except at the principal stages, it is not surprising that you can traverse the whole extent of the country in so few days. But, for any length of time, this rapid motion is quite too unnatural. You can only get a very piecemeal view of the country from the windows, and, with the tremendous speed with which you go, can keep no object long in sight; you are unable also to stop at any place.” After three days’ travelling “at this tremendous speed,” he reached Newcastle, from which the above letter was dated. The rest of the journey was also performed with the same unnatural rapidity. By some chance he made acquaintance with a young medical student, and the two together commenced housekeeping in Edinburgh on a very frugal and sensible plan. The letters which Niebuhr wrote to his parents from Edinburgh, and which contained his observations on the graver matters of politics and of learning, were unfortunately burnt; those which were addressed to his betrothed have been alone preserved, and these chiefly concern matters of a domestic and personal nature. We hear, therefore, very little of the more learned society into which, doubtless, Niebuhr occasionally entered. With Professor Playfair he formed an intimacy which was afterwards renewed at Rome. Other names are mentioned, but no particulars are given. The subjects which he principally studied in Edinburgh were mathematics and physical sciences. Philological and historical studies he prosecuted by himself, and by way of recreation. “In these departments he regarded the learned men there as incomparably inferior to the Germans.” A Mr Scott, an old friend of his father’s, and to whom he brought letters of introduction, was the most intimate acquaintance he possessed. The quite patriarchal reception that he received from Mr Scott and his family will be read with interest. As to his impressions of the Scotch, as a people, these are extremely various: he is at one time charmed with their unexampled piety; at another, he finds it a dreary formalism; and then, again, from the height of his Kantian philosophy, he detects a shallow French infidelity pervading the land. Such inconsistencies are natural and excusable in a young man writing down his first impressions in a most unreserved correspondence. But there would be very little gained by quoting them here at length. We